Trading methods have evolved from a manually intensive process to a technology enabled, electronic platform. Advances in technology are having an increasingly large and broad impact on trading and the way in which exchanges conduct business. What was previously seen as just a supplement to the traditional pit trading, electronic trading platforms continue to increase in importance and popularity. The advent of electronic trading has meant that a customer can be in virtually direct contact with the market, from practically anywhere in the world, performing near real-time transactions, and without the need to make personal contact with a broker. Electronic trading systems are also convenient for floor brokers on the floor at an exchange for receiving orders electronically.
Many exchanges throughout the world now support electronic trading systems. Electronic trading has made it easier for a larger number of people with many different trading strategies to participate in the market at any given time. The increase in the number of potential traders has led to, among other things, a more competitive market, greater liquidity, and rapidly changing prices. In the electronic trading environment, speed is of great importance with respect to both the receipt of market data from the exchanges and the delivery of transactions to the exchanges. The risk of loss can be substantially increased if information flowing in either direction is out of date.
Exchanges that implement electronic trading are generally based on one or more centralized computers (host), one or more networks, and the exchange participants' computers (client). In general, the host forms the electronic heart of the fully computerized electronic trading system. The host's operations typically cover order-matching, maintaining order books and positions, price information, and managing and updating the database for the online trading day as well as nightly batch runs. The host is also typically equipped with external interfaces that maintain online contact to quote vendors and/or other price information systems.
Typically, traders can link to the host via a client through one or more networks, where a network may include a direct data line between the host and the client, or where a network may include other common network components such as high-speed servers, routers, and gateways, and so on. For example, a high-speed data line may be used to establish direct connections between the client and the host. In another example, the Internet may be used to establish a connection between the client and the host. There are many different types of networks known in the art that may link a trader to the host.
Regardless of the way in which a connection is established, a client device allows a trader to participate in the market. The clients typically use a software trading application to produce interactive trading screens. The trading screens enable the traders to enter and execute orders, obtain market quotes, and monitor positions while implementing various trading strategies including those previously used on the floor of an exchange. Such strategies incorporated into an electronic marketplace can improve the speed, accuracy, and ultimately the profitability of trading electronically.
For certain trading strategies, traders may be interested in monitoring and participating in markets for two or more tradable objects. Known trading applications have limited capabilities to address this interest. For example, market information for one tradable object may be displayed in a trading interface in a first trading window and information on a second tradable object may be displayed in a second trading window. Another available alternative provides limited market information about a first tradable object in one row of a table and market information about a second tradable object in a different row of the table. A disadvantage of these known trading applications is that the trader who is interested in both tradable objects must take the time to try to discern the current relationships between the tradable objects. Order entry is also complicated by the multiple windows and/or multiple rows of market information.
It would therefore be desirable to have an improved apparatus, method and interface for trading multiple tradable objects.